Ice, Ice, Babies

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The last time Osiris had been in this neck of the woods (hue), he'd found himself scrambling desperately for survival while a big feathery rock bird beat up a giant shellfish thing. That was before his great pilgrimage of self-betterment, though, and now that he was fresh off of getting his tail kicked by every other dungeon between here and Grassveil, Osiris thought he could turn the tables on his enemy today. His enemy, of course, being... snow? Winter? The Icy Lands in general? He wasn't sure, but he was definitely here to kick some butt and maybe find some nanners.

The dratini had prepared himself adequately for the task, in his own unbiased opinion. Wrapped around him like a great fuzzy burrito was a durable, high-quality, and expensive winter cloak to protect against the cold. Hitched to his neck by a strap was his sturdy and reliable satchel, packed to the brim with all manners of orbs, berries, seeds, and other fail safes in case he found himself face to face with something that both could and would slurp him up like a noodle. The dragon worm was the picture of determination and immature earnestness as he slithered through the deep snow of Icicle Woods, leaving a very obvious trail behind him.

Now if only he could find some interesting matchups - he was here to practice, learn, and conquer.

50 - 20 energy (entry): 30 energy

Maxie: [Energy: 3 + 1 (Page) = 4]
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The confident attitude of the dratini reminded her of someone. She hoped this Osiris didn’t end up like that someone. She followed the dragon casually. ”Confidence and experience is all well and good, but don’t let it go to your head,” she commented, the thought of the breloom she’d met in the mountains flickered in her mind. ”Things can turn bad faster than you can ever predict.”

It wasn’t until now, in this moment, that she was beginning to realise just how much her last dungeon excursion had affected her and the way she thought about things. She was always the practical sort, but now there was a greater sense of pessimism permeating her thoughts. She was expecting things to turn bad at some point—as if it were inevitable.

That couldn’t have been a terrible thing though, could it? If you’re always expecting the worst, it will never be able to surprise you. ”I’ve got an advantage, so if you’re having a rough go just give me a shout.” Not that she’d wait for a request for aid before jumping into a fight. She wasn’t at all averse to a little combat.

"Oh, I know. I've, uh, been there a time or two." Osiris replied, thinking back to his many misadventures. There was that time with Geo and the spiders, that time with Kiba and the Vale, that time with Kiba and the killer jolteon, that time with Acro and the seviper... Maxie spoke the truth. It lent her some amount of credibility that she warned him rather than get sucked up in his enthusiasm.

The dratini led the two of them through the thick snow, winding around thick threes and frosty bushes as he searched for anything interesting. Unfortunately, either they were in a pretty unpopulated area of the forest, or things were hiding from them, because nothing popped out to challenge him. Osiris huffed, eyes flickering from side to side as he scanned the tree lines.

What escaped his notice was the half-camouflaged form of an Abomasnow dozing on the ground a few paces away, blending right in with all the show and grass.

Maxie: [Energy: 4 + 10 (Oran Berry) = 14]
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As they walked, Maxie took in every detail of her surroundings. The Icy Lands were so very different from her home in the desert. There were more trees—at least in this area—than in the desert, that was for sure. The snow was, she supposed, similar enough to the sand. It was everywhere, blanketing the landscape, and was just as awful, if not worse. At least sand wasn’t uncomfortably cold or wet.

In her surveilling, she managed to notice the odd tree. Or rather, the tree-like Pokemon they were about to run into. ”Stop!” she hissed, not wanting to shout and wake it, thus defeating the whole point of warning Osiris in the first place. ”You’re so busy looking for Pokemon that you’re missing them all," she said as she pointed to the snoozing abomasnow.

She wasn’t sure picking a fight with this particular Ice-Type was the best call, but she wasn’t sure what exactly Osiris knew. If he did decide to make this his target, at least he’d have the advantage of stealth on his side—assuming he didn’t anounce his attack this time.
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Maxie used x1 Oran Berry (+10 Energy)
Maxie’s Rolls:

Badger carried out 10 launched of one Icicle Woods :

, , , , , , , , ,

Osiris flinched at Maxie's frenzied warning, very attuned to getting scolded by his exploration partners at this point. As soon as he heard that tone of voice come out of the mawile, he knew he'd done something wrong. He glanced back at her and subsequently tracked her line of sight, spotting the slumbering abomasnow and metaphorically crapping his pants. Whoops.

"O-oh, uh, okay," he whispered back, voice hushed in a way that clearly communicated his regret. Maybe he had been moving a little bit fast there. "My bad. Let's... not do that one, okay?" the dratini suggested, staring at the giant camouflaged pokemon with something in between fear and sourness. How had he missed that?

Slowly and with a lot more respect paid to the sleeping pokemon, he moved away from the creature. Distance was good. The more space between him and anything that was like a dozen times his height and fifty times his bulk, the better. "Maybe you should lead the way, then." Iris said as they went on. He felt like he was better suited to... well, anything that wasn't being a leader, honestly. The little dragon was too excited to strut his stuff to be vigilant, apparently.

Maxie: [Energy: 0]
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She did so without further discussion. Once they were well enough away from the Frost Tree Pokemon, she spoke up. ”Fortunately for the both of us, I’m paying very close attention to details around here. I’m from the Eastern Desert area, so this sort of environment is all new to me. But I did my research.” After her little adventure in the mountains, she was determined never to enter a dungeon without knowing what to expect.

”Oh, that reminds me. You got any aspear berries on you? They might come in handy.” Aspear berries helped with defrosting when an ice-Type would try to coat you in ice. A useful thing to have in this environment, for sure. Items were a big part of why she was here. Specifically, she was after Escape Orbs, but anything else useful would be good, too.

Research? What research was there even to do on a mystery dungeon, aside from walking in and doing it the hard way? Well... aside from finding someone who had already been there and asking them everything there was to know. Weeks ago he might have thought that sucked all the fun out of exploration, but today, he'd be too grateful to have information that prevented disasters.

"Uh, yeah, a few of them," Osiris stammered in reply. "Two or three, I think—I figured a handful would be nice to have." he explained, ignoring the fact that she probably knew what they did, having asked for them and all. Being frozen sounded terrifying, honestly. Sleep was almost preferable as a status condition; at least then you weren't conscious for whatever came next. But being frozen, you were just immobile and helpless.

He was hoping to avoid all that business.

Maxie: [Energy: 0]
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It was beginning to dawn on her that they had seen surprisingly few Pokemon about—and none of the ones they’d encounter had been outright hostile. ”This place seems a lot more peaceful than some of the other dungeons I’ve been in. I think I had a harder time by this point in Shadowhue.”

She immediately regretted saying it. Not because anything immediately bad followed it, but because by doing so she was inviting something bad to follow. She was generally quite logical in her thinking, and wasn’t particularly superstitious— but after her experience with the Echo World, which seemed to spite her at every opportunity, saying “everything is fine” sort of felt like challenging the world to make things difficult.

This thought made her pause. She looked around, searching for the bad thing that would punish her for saying the place was peaceful. But after a few moments of nothing, she sighed. ”Not gonna lie, I thought by saying something like that I’d invited trouble, but maybe I’m just—”

Two plumes of snow shot up on either side of her. She stumbled backward in surprise. It wasn’t until she was half-buried in a snowbank that she realised it was just two white-fured vulpix, who had apparently been hiding beneath the snow for some reason. The weren’t attacking, though. They were just… Running away.

”Huh, must have spooked them,” the mawile said as she pulled herself out of the snow, her tone indicating a bit of embarrassment at her reaction to the surprise. To her credit, she thought she was being ambushed.

And she was right. They were being ambushed. But not by the vulpix. Thin chains of ice, strung up like a pulley through the tree branches above them, slowly began to descend toward the dratini behind her.

Osiris was glad for any kind of conversation that drew attention away from his monumental failure to use his eyeballs. "Hey, Shadowhue's no joke. I've been all over, but that place is like... deceptively dangerous." he said, thinking back to his few trips. He thought that just because it was close to Grassveil that it would be a walk in the park, but that was absolutely not the case.

Maybe he was too glad, honestly, because even when Maxie stopped and paused concerningly as if something was about to ambush them, he found himself wholly unimpressed with the two vulpix that'd sprung up. "Aw, I dont think there's anything around here that's real spooky," Osiris chuckled. "Except maybe your h - er, Gilbert. Now there's a spoooooooohh, hey I'm not food!"

He'd been cut off by the wholly alien and unpleasant sensation of icy cold tendrils slipping around him, tightening with a worrying degree of strength before lifting upward. Osiris wriggled desperately on instinct, looking up to bare witness to nature's most terrifying snowflake looking at him like he was dinner.

The pokemon hovered above in the treetops, sickly cold chains running down it all the way to where they grappled him. "Get this guy before I get got, Maxie!!" he squealed. In this position, the dratini had options, but... well, he was scared.

Maxie: [Energy: 0]
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The universe was out to get her, she was sure of it. Unfortunately for Osiris, it seemed the universe was getting at her by going for him. Also unfortunately for Osiris, she wasn’t exactly a ranged fighter, or a good climber. ”Uh, try not to panic, I’ll get you down!”

Now that she had attempted to keep the wyrm calm, she had to think of a way to actually get him down. No ranged moves. Chains out of reach. Pokemon—she knew this one—Cryogonal. ”Don’t worry, it won’t eat you until after it freezes you!” Was that supposed to be comforting?

Items. Did she have any useful items? She checked her bag. Aspear Berry—that wouldn’t help until after the cryogonal froze him—which she did not intend to let happen. What else was there? Trawl orbs. They wouldn’t help directly, but maybe…

”Hold on I’ve got this,” she was not looking to see how far up the chain Osiris had reached. She tossed the two trawl orbs against a tree. They shattered, there was a brief flash, and suddenly in place of what should have been their debris was a pile of items. Now she just needed to find something useful in the pile.

Gummi, berry, another gummi, another berry… TM! ...Not a ranged move. Heal seed? Nope. X-Eye seed? Maybe…? Silver Spike! ”Found something!” She turned back and looked up toward the dratini, throwing a spike at one of the chains.

She missed.

She threw another.

The link shattered as the second spike impacted it, severing the chain. ”Got it!”
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Maxie Used x2 Silver Spikes

Osiris swallowed the lump of fear in his throat as he fell to the ground, the ice chain severed by Maxie's quick thinking. The dratini hit the snow with a soft thump, angry tears in his eyes as he looked up at the cyrogonal that almost slurped him up like cheap Chinese noodles. To heck with that.

He looked over at his impromptu partner. "This one for sure," he bit out sourly, voice shaky but resolute. The abomasnow had just been napping, but this one tried to kidnap him!

With that said and his intentions to fight clear, Osiris slithered backward to make some distance between him and the snowflake pokemon. He hoped Maxie did the same; he didn't exactly have the arms to throw spikes in case she got caught too. For it's part, the cyrogonal merely hovered in place, almost... thoughtfully.

It regarded the two pokemon warily before slowly hovering forward and downward at a slow and ominous angle. It was on.

Maxie: [Energy: 0]
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Maxie did indeed step back—back to her pile of items. The cryogonal was positioning itself between the two—which as far as Maxie could tell wasn’t the best of strategies. It was putting itself into a flanked position, but that was fine by her. ”I’d got an advantage, so as long as it stays in reach, I can probably take it down,” she declared. She wasn’t sure if it could understand them or not. It didn’t seem intent on participating in conversation, and didn’t seem to change targets—it continued to face Osiris, its apparent prey of choice.

She kept a silver spike in one hand, and the other picked up the items in the snow and dropped them into her bag. ”I’ll let you take the lead, but I’ve got your back.” The Ice-Type didn’t seem to want to make the first aggressive move. It was as if it were analysing it’s target. ”Be cautious, though. She added.

The mawile's words were a balm to his frayed nerves and rising anticipation; for all that Osiris claimed to love this lifestyle, in the heat of the moment when he was facing down something that wanted to do much worse than just hurt him, all he felt was fear and anxiety. His serpentine body was alight with a rising, frantic energy that demanded him to do things; maneuver himself into a more advantageous position, run away, strike first, scream at the pokemon, make friends with it, whatever he had to do to calm himself down.

It wasn't until the battle was fought and the work was done that he was reminded why he loved this. In the days after, when all the panic and distress was gone, all he was left with was the memory of pitting his best against someone else's and seeing who came out on top. And to him, just that was worth the bad things.

Retrospect wasn't the only good thing, though. There were other pokemon specifically—pokemon like Maxie who was putting herself at risk because he decided to pick this fight when they could probably get away with running. He appreciated her patience. "I'm here to be smart today," he said aloud, simultaneously reassuring his ally and reminding himself of his purpose here. The times where he'd recklessly chuck himself at wild pokemon were supposed to be over. He was doing things properly now. "Don't worry." His voice was calmer than it was a moment before, where it had been tremulous and vindictive. Actual conflict tended to have that effect on him.  

There was no starting signal; or rather, the closest thing to a starting signal was a shard of ice forming freakishly fast at the base of the cryogonal's hexagon body, crystalizing to a razor-sharp edge and rocketing off towards Osiris like a bullet. It was only the greater speed of his ace move that allowed him to evade the likely devastating blow—the little blue noodle blasted off from where he had been a moment earlier in a burst of extremespeed, clods of dirt, snow, and grass flying up from the position he had been in response. A visible track through the snow led to where he'd rocketed around the creature, maneuvering himself slightly closer to Maxie.

It was a dangerous and lethal opening move that served to remind him exactly what he was dealing with... a predator. Like Maxie, Osiris wasn't sure if this creature was wild or not, but its silence lent him to think it was. That meant he might be able to out-strategize it; it could be cunning, but not truly intelligent. The way it rotated mid-air to regard him and take note of his new position served to reinforce that notion in his head. It was... not quite robotic, but systematic, definitely. Like it was obeying tried and true instincts that served to feed it rather than dealing with a sentient, learning opponent in a duel.

He did not retaliate. Instead, Iris stayed coiled tight against the ground, eyes trained intently on the cryogonal as he waited for its next move. With his speed, he could afford to play defense for a bit while they learned what this thing was capable of. That was cautious like Maxie wanted, right?

Maxie: [Energy: 0]
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Maxie was surprised at how suddenly the Ice-Type attacked. She was even more surprised by how quickly Osiris moved out of the way. He was fast. Faster than Quick Attack fast. Why was everyone faster than her?

It seemed the dratini was intent on seeing what exactly this thing was capable of before dedicating himself to an attack. It was probably a good call. She wasn’t exactly sure what all a cryogonal was capable of. It began to spin in place, slowly at first, but picking up speed. The wind started to pick up, snow being pulled into a spiral around the thing. Small ice crystals began to form. Then it stopped, and a great burst of ice, snow, and freezing air emanated from it—Icy Wind. It was trying to slow them both down.

Even the cryogonal wanted to be faster than her. Maxie, of course, resisted the attack. She looked to see how Osiris fared against it, however.

Shards of ice flying at him like lethal daggers was something that Osiris could handle. The projectile was visible and tangible, easy to track and react to. A gust of freezing cold air was decidedly not. The dratini's eyes flickered from left to right as the blast of air approached him, trying to gauge where the attack began and ended, but failed to find an exit point and was blasted by the icy wind. It was cold enough that it burned, biting right through his scales as if they didn't exist and settling deep in his core.

More than that, after it passed over him, it left Osiris feeling... almost lethargic, but not with fatigue. He simply felt slow. The dratini shook his head out, trying and failing to cast off the effects of the move. "That bites," he spat out, even more unenthused about this fight than before.

He began to strafe slightly, unwilling to be caught not moving after tasting that one. Allowing the bitterness and dislike of this cryogonal to pool in his mind, Osiris seized anger and let it bubble up in his throat. An instant later and the dragon rage burst from his throat like a blue-green bullet, aimed directly at the cryogonal... well, for the upper half of it, at least. In response, the creature smoothly and calmly floated down, allowing the blast to merely chip against the lip of its dumb snowflake head.

A glancing hit, but it was at least a little bit lower to the ground than before. Maybe if he could get up in the air and smack it down somehow, Maxie could chip in.

Maxie: [Energy: 0]
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Osiris stood strong against the Ice attack. It was good to know he could take a super effective hit without going down—even if it was a relatively weak attack. It was a shame his followup attack was about as effective. Maxie briefly considered throwing another spike, but decided against it. She was choosing to stay on the sidelines for now, to observe how her potential future partner could handle himself in a fight in which he was at a disadvantage.

If things started to go south, though, she would be more than happy to step in. She wasn’t the biggest fan of standing by when she could be helping out in a fight. She’d offer the dratini some advice, but she didn’t really have anything to say. So far the two were tit for tat. She had to wonder just how strong Osiris was. He was young, sure—younger than her—but he was strong, she could tell. Just how strong was yet to be determined.